Your team is 6 games back in August - can they realistically come back and win
the division? Does it really help to know that the magic number for the team
they're chasing is 37? What you'd really like to know is what chance your team
has of winning its division, winning the wildcard, or just making the playoffs
either way.

coolstandings.com calculates exactly that, for EVERY team, EVERY day.
The following "coolstats" are updated daily:

DIV

- % chance each team has of winning division

WC

- % chance each team has of winning the wild card

POFF

- % chance each team has of making the playoffs

A DIV of 50.0 means your team has a 50% chance of winning the division. A
WC of 100.0 means you've got the wild card wrapped up. And a POFF of 0.0 means "wait
till next year!"

How do we calculate these statistics? Basically we simulate the rest
of the season millions of times, based on every team's performance to date and
its remaining schedule. We then look at how many "seasons" a team won its
division or won the wildcard, and voila - we have our numbers.

The trick, of course, is to determine what chance each team has of beating every other
team. Our method is to use simple team statistics (e.g. runs scored and runs against)
to predict how each team will fare against all others. For those of you familiar with
baseball prediction, we use a variation of the Bill James "Pythagorean Theorem" to predict results.
Pretty smart, huh? That's why we call this prediction mode "Smart mode".

Another method is to simply assume that any team has a 50-50 shot of beating any other team.
You could flip a coin to decide who would win each game. This method isn't too realistic, but
it usually gives Chicago teams a better shot at the division. For lack of a better term,
we call this prediction mode "Dumb mode".

For the playoffs, we calculate a different set of coolstats:

WIN

- % chance each team has of winning series

PW

- projected number of wins

PL

- projected number of losses

EW

- expected number of wins

EL

- expected number of losses

The projected wins and losses are the most likely results given the predicted series winner
actually wins the series. The expected wins and losses are the average results, no matter which team wins.

If you have any questions about either the playoffs or the regular season, check our FAQ page.

So keep track of your team, and check back with us daily to see how last night's scores changed
the playoff landscape!